So i went for a walk Saturday night. I felt the need to do one of my favorite pass times and just walk blindly in the streets in hope that i can reflect on the month and jot down some of my own thoughts. Yesterday was different it all felt so pointless and boring like i was going to go out there and have nothing to say to myself. I walked out to the park at around 8pm and i was shaking from the cold and i wanted to go home after just stepping foot out on the grass. Flushing Meadow park is incredibly large but i choose to sit down next to my favorite childhood museum The Hall of Science. I took a seat around a bench with few dim lights and i just starred at the gorgeous architecture and i wrote in my journal. I wrote about how depressing some days can really be as i feel like im on a journey somewhere but i have absolutely no clue what im supposed to be doing or if im even on the right path. I sat in silence and by body began to tremble. I knew it wasnt from the cold air so i started to ask myself all kinds of personal questions until i realized that im not happy with my routine. It is incredibly repetitive and its becoming dull. I decided on that chilly bench that i will begin to open up to those around me and start healthier hobbies other than the gym i need a change. Maybe something like a shift in my mindset. Im not too sure how well this will work but for today Sunday afternoon i will make zero complaints.

Clueless

The world through my eyes, as a child was bright and beautiful. Today the world seems just as average as ever before. One could say the change in perspective came from a more developed brain but I choose to believe that as I grew older the world’s beauty faded and the reality washed over me of how unfair life truly is. Right out of the start at 2 pm I was born on May 8th with my umbilical cord wrapped around my neck. My yellow skin tone shocked my grandma into a panic believing I was moments away from passing; she reached out to me and I latched onto her fingers with all the baby strength that I had, she lifted me up inches away from the ground and saw I still had a lot more life in me than she could have ever thought. 

The young life I lived however bright and glorious I might believe it, was in actuality lonely and frustrating, for I was diagnosed with chronic asthma at the age of 6. Before the diagnosis, I was mostly ignored and it wasn’t until another parent noticed my symptoms of an asthma attack before my mom took me to consult a doctor. However, being born into a largely traditional immigrant family my mom didn’t want me anywhere near the medication they gave me. Unluckily for me, my attacks became more and more frequent and constant doctors appointments were a weekly occurrence. My childhood wasn’t like most kids I was not running around playing freeze tag or playing in the snow during a chilly morning; I spent my time talking and connecting with doctors, school nurses, and with teachers during recess. I like to believe that this is why I was very mature for my small age of 6. To my blind eye, the world was still fair and I enjoyed my childhood just as any other kid however, behind my back was a world of stress and debt for my parents struggled with paying off the hospital and medication bills my Medicaid didn’t cover. I constantly would ask my mom when my new refills would come in as I was unable to return to school without providing a pump refill to the school nurse. At the age of 8 one day, my mother had enough and told me that we had no money for my medication and I should be fine without it so we stopped going to the appointments and started doing homemade remedies. Naturally, I began to ask her questions like What do you mean we don’t have any money? And Why don’t you just go to the bank? Largely she ignored me and I began to wonder what money even was and why didn’t we have any. The naturalist route only lasted about a month before I had a major attack where on a cold December morning I woke up with the feeling of a rock down my throat, I gasped and tried to scream but the air had already escaped from my lungs with the pressure of a grown man sitting on my chest I began to thrash loudly and banging on anything to gain attention. Thankfully my uncle came into the room and found an old asthma inhaler with zero pumps ready, however, unknowing to us asthma pumps can go over zero and I was saved from what could’ve been my last December morning. I was rushed to the hospital where they monitored me and kept me overnight. The new stack of bills was thankfully covered by Medicaid but they required my parents to purchase a large and expensive nebulizer that pumps a stronger more expensive steroid into my lungs. I pondered the question of why we don’t have the nebulizer yet for weeks and it wasn’t until my parent’s friend who had a nebulizer donated it to me as a gift. Reflecting on this made me realize that potentially I would be dead because of how poor our financial situation was I can not imagine the pain my parents must have felt trying to tell a six-year-old kid that he has to hold on until the next check comes in. My physical pain must have been nothing compared to the emotional distress my parents were in trying to come up with new ways to get money as I found out today my bills were being paid by my father with two jobs, my mother, my grandma, and my uncle. Eventually, at the age of  11, I made a full recovery and was finally able to free my parents from this crippling emotion and financial burden.

The start of middle school was where I began to see what money was and how you get it. I finally made new friends and new memories away from doctor’s appointments and hospital visits. Looking at the other students made me recognize how different I was when compared to the other kids. We all looked the same, we were all people but the way we were dressed was incredibly different. Everyone had new clothes, new books, and new bookbags I felt like an outsider with broken glued-up converse, a handed down bookbag, and a notebook from elementary school with the used pages ripped out. After school, all the kids would head to McDonald’s or hang out in large groups all over queens but I could never really take part as I would end up either staring at others eating or having to turn down events like going to the movies; I never understood why my parents wouldn’t give me any money as other kids said their parents gave them an allowance. As depressing as it might have seemed, middle school was some of the best years of my life. My friends were amazing enough to always provide me with something to eat after school or cover my ticket to the movies nobody ever judged me when I had to tape up my converse because the sole was coming out. Around this time I felt like life was unfair and that was just the way things were but my experience and my friends in middle school changed me drastically to where they all made me realize that any situation can be changed no matter what position you are in there is always a way out of anything. From the end of middle school, I came out a completely different person I stopped complaining about my financial problems and got a job painting apartments in Manhattan with my uncle at 14. Previously due to my asthma, I was incredibly obese as a child, and with severe body dysmorphia, my friends pushed me to appreciate who I was and lose weight. We would play basketball every single day during the summer even though I was never that good by the end of the summer I lost 20lb. Thankfully my friends followed me through high school and together we helped each other up for the longest time. So when it comes back to the question of how I got into the place I am today that would be because of my amazing group of accepting and caring friends.

To this day I never forgot about the promise I made to one of my pediatric physician where I told her that one day I would be standing exactly where she was giving others the same care she gave me through my years of difficulty. My passion has always been strong for medicine being introduced into it at an incredibly young age it was always a world of mystery to be ready to be explored. As excited as I am to begin my journey forward, what shaped me today is my perseverance of financial distress, physical and emotional pain from a traumatic illness, and a support group of friends that can get me through anything. Thankfully because I learned how to handle stress and pain at such a young age one could never tell how difficult my life is just from looking at me.